Josh and his Cassel

I remember the first phone interview I had with Josh McDaniels after he became the Broncos’ head coach. This was during Super Bowl week. I was in Tampa. He was back in his Dove Valley cocoon assembling a coaching staff, a game plan, training camp schedule, watching film, ranking the free-agent class, and whatever else went into creating the 2009 Broncos.

I told him then that if there was but one reason why he got the Broncos’ job, it was Matt Cassel.

“”I hope there’s a million reasons why,’’ McDaniels said then. “”That was one of them. While you’re coaching a team or a player, you don’t ever think about it as far as what it can do for me down the road. You’re just trying to do the best you can at that point in time.’’

McDaniels’ Broncos and Cassel’s Kansas City Chiefs meet for the first time as opponents Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium. McDaniels was New England’s offensive coordinator in 2007 when the Pats’ record-setting 589 points was largely credited to quarterback Tom Brady. It wasn’t until Brady went down for the season in the 2008 opener that the football world starting taking a closer look at McDaniels. Brady’s replacement was Cassel, who had never started in four years at USC, never started in three years in the NFL.

Under McDaniels’ tutelage, Cassel directed the Pats to an 11-5 record. McDaniels passed on head coaching interviews the previous year, and his energy and smarts were so powerful during the interview process in January that Broncos owner Pat Bowlen might have hired, anyway, Cassel or no Cassel.

But bringing along Cassel was arguably the most impressive aspect of McDaniels’ candidacy.

Nicki Jhabvala is a Broncos beat writer for The Denver Post. She was previously the digital news editor for sports. Before arriving in Denver, she spent five years at Sports Illustrated working primarily as its online NBA editor. She also spent two years as a home page editor at the New York Times.